


absolute lithops effect

by shcherbatskayas



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Actually Empowering Makeovers, Character Study, Existential Angst, F/M, Gen, Graphic Description of Shopping Trips, Peko's Canon Self-Esteem, happy birthday peko!, natsumi is herself and calls people bitches a lot, shcherbatskayas content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 05:43:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15113000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shcherbatskayas/pseuds/shcherbatskayas
Summary: In which Peko goes on a shopping trip and tries to grow into who she always was.





	absolute lithops effect

**Author's Note:**

> happy peko day!!!!!!! title of this is from a mountain goats song again, but a) absolute lithops effect is a good song and b) absolute lithops effect fits. you can give it a listen [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnU0NNNXC6Q). not much else to say in the notes this time, other than that kudos and comments are always appreciated and i hope you enjoy!

Peko gets the news in the same way that she gets most news about Hope’s Peak: screamed at her from Natsumi’s dorm window while she goes on her morning jog with Hajime Hinata. 

“NO UNIFORM SATURDAYS, BITCHES!” She yells, causing a few birds to scatter. Hajime, presumably having already heard this news, rolls his eyes. Peko waves to indicate that yes, she heard, and they keep jogging. Hajime is getting faster these days, consistently about two steps behind her, and it takes him longer to run out of breath. 

“She’s going to lose her voice one of these days, I swear to god.” Hajime says once she shuts her window and goes back to doing whatever she was doing, which probably includes fixing her makeup and being a general scourge on society. 

“Bold of you to assume Natsumi’s capable of losing.” Peko tells him, and it must be a good morning because Hajime snickers for the third time since they’ve started running. Developing a personality has been difficult, to say the very least of it, but _occasionally funny_ is a trait that Peko’s managed to grow into fairly well. 

They jog in silence the rest of the way to the cafeteria, and the whole time, Peko can’t stop thinking about the implication of no uniforms for Saturday cram classes. It was one of the things the Talent and Reserve course student councils were able to agree on and the fact that it’s now happening is a borderline miracle, something that Peko should very much be happy about, but there’s a problem. Just one.

Peko doesn’t have anything to wear.

Sure, she could just show up in her uniform anyways, but that would be silly and against the point and make it look like she didn’t like that everyone else got to wear what they wanted, which she very much did. Other than her uniform, there was only her training clothes, and showing up to school in those just felt wrong to Peko, wrong in a way she was just learning to recognize as the feeling she got when she didn’t want to do something. 

It wasn’t like she had never worn anything fancy in her life, of course. It was just that those clothes weren’t hers. They were brought out when they were needed and shoved away into some deep corner of the Kuzuryuu house the rest of the time. If Peko asked for them, she knew that her request would be denied and she would get a good slap in the fact from the mistress for her trouble, and she rather liked not getting slapped in the face, and so that was only to be used as a last resort. 

She could just skip Saturday classes. Enough people did it that it wouldn’t be too much of an issue, but most of those people were in other classes. If she skipped, Chisa would sit down with her and ask if something was wrong and how was she supposed to say _I skipped because I didn’t know what to wear_? After hearing that, Chisa would think, probably correctly, that Peko was silly and vain and childish, and Peko didn’t want her teacher to think of her like that. She didn’t want anyone to think of her like that. That wasn’t the sort of person Peko wanted to be. 

Skipping is not an option. Wearing her uniform is not an option. Wearing her training clothes is an option, but it would just make her miserable, as would be asking for one of her nice outfits. Peko almost runs right past the cafeteria, so lost in her thoughts, and Hajime all but drags her through the food line because she suddenly can’t focus on anything but the pajamas that most of the students were still wearing. 

“What are you thinking about?” He asks once they get to their normal table. 

“Saturday.” Peko admits, and when Hajime only frowns more, she explains. “I don’t know what to wear.” 

“Well, it’s only Monday. You have time to figure it out.” Hajime reminds her, and Peko relaxes. Right. She has time to think of something. But for now, she has to think about food, and class, and the fact that her hair was currently falling in her face. 

“Hm. I guess I do.” She agrees, and then Chiaki sits down at their table, balancing a tray in one hand and playing some sort of video game with another and Hajime is talking about balance and whatever she’s playing and the rhythm of the morning picks up right where it left off, and the trouble is almost forgotten. 

***

The answer comes to Peko in the middle of class as she hears Hiyoko and Mahiru’s whispered conversation: Shopping. Of course. She could just go shopping for something. That’s how all of her clothes were gotten, after all. They were all bought, and that happened because someone went shopping, and that someone who goes shopping could very well be her.

It’s not like Peko doesn’t have money to spend, either. She just forgets about it because she never has a reason to use it. It’s Hope’s Peak-given, gained because the Kuzuryuu clan decided not to claim her as a ward and so they correctly assumed that she had no money of her own, and it’s a nice sum. A nice sum that Fuyuhiko insisted she be allowed to keep, even though she would’ve been happy to give it up to the clan. 

“It’s your fuckin’ money, ya hear? I don’t want any of it, and I’m not letting my parents take it, either. It’s yours. Spend it on...I don’t know. Spend it on whatever you want.” He had said, and the idea was terrifying at the time. Whatever you want is such a large phrase, such an overwhelming phrase. It’s been six months, and Peko still can’t wrap her head around it.

So, she can just go shopping, but that presents the problem of what she should buy. Peko doesn’t think she’s ever gotten a say in what clothes she gets, and suddenly it seems like too much. There are too many decisions involved in pretending like she’s a normal girl, in lying to everyone including herself and saying that she’s a real girl with a personality and a soul and, presumably, a sense of style. It’s just too much for someone like her, someone who’s halfway between a robot and a ghost. It’s too much. 

Peko gives up on focusing on the lesson and instead focuses on naming the emotions she’s currently feeling. The one or two times she got roped into talking with a Hope’s Peak counselor, they said she should try to do that and see if it helps, and so she starts picking them apart. Peko recognizes that she feels lost more than anything, but she also feels scared and alone and like she’s being very ridiculous about this and she doesn’t know what to do about any of the emotions, which is frustrating and annoying and makes her feel like naming them was useless and she just wasted twenty minutes to try and figure it out when she could’ve been paying attention to the lesson like she’s supposed to. However, at least one clear desire comes out of it, and that’s something. Sure, the desire is to curl up into a ball and stare at the wall of her dorm until she no longer exists, but it’s a desire, something that real people have.

She drags herself through the rest of the day and stays entirely silent. No one seems to think this is odd except for Fuyuhiko, who sometimes turns back to look at her and raises one eyebrows. In response, Peko simply nods and then looks away. She doesn’t know if that was the right answer because she doesn’t know what question he’s asking, and the weight of all she doesn’t know is crushing her, but she goes on. 

The existential terror is a bit much, so when class ends, Peko decides not to try and conquer that. From what she understands of real people, they deal with it fairly often and don’t really ever conquer it. So instead she decides to aim for the core issue again, the fact that she has no idea what to wear on Saturday. She needs some sort of guide, some general idea. Is there a rulebook for fashion? 

As it turns out, no. But there are lots of magazines, and Peko makes her first real purchase when she goes to the corner store and buys one copy of every magazine they have in stock. 

***

At the dead of night and early in the morning, highlighter in hand and a cup of bulletproof coffee on her desk, trying to make sense of some columinist’s floofy prose, Peko feels like she’s an archaeologist deciphering some ancient language. Greek, maybe, or Latin, or that language spoken in the Indus River Valley that Chisa mentioned that no one has ever been able to read. She’s picking it apart to try and figure out the culture, figure out the ways, try to change herself to them like real girls do. It’s confusing and strange, but also somewhat fun. 

There’s a lot about which trends are in and which trends are out, but trends seem to change so quickly that two magazines published a week apart disagree with each other. Peko can’t keep up with that, because what if what she buys this week is a no next week? One magazine preaches the importance not of trends and fashion but of _personal style_ , and sure, getting through that editorial is about as grueling as getting through a math textbook, but keeping a style seems easier than keeping up with trends. 

But how do you develop a style?

Peko’s search is too vague for Google, so she has to figure out how to do that in the subtext of the magazine and the first thing that she notices about styles is that they involve color palettes. Alright. A color palette. Peko can work with that. 

It takes her until Wednesday afternoon to figure out about the color palette thing, and she’s filling out a quiz about which color palette matches her skin tone while Sonosuke throws knives at her. Or, well, more around her than at her. He needs a good target to aim at, and he helps Peko out when she needs an extra person, so she’s more than happy to stand relatively still while he throws. She’s done homework like this before, and sure, she’s still half on her guard, but the worst Sonosuke ever gave her was a knick on the top of the ear that healed after two weeks and a mild amount of stinging. She’s not scared here. 

A knife just misses the edge of her magazine and Peko looks up from it to make a face at him. She’s gotten better at making faces that more accurately describe what she’s feeling, and what she’s feeling now is disappointment because she knows Sonosuke can do better than that. He shrugs, a little ashamed, and tries again. This time, he pins a braid to the board behind her.

“Nice shot.” Peko tells him, because she read something about positive reinforcement being good once and it seems to work well with him. 

“Thanks.” He throws another knife and it lands a little below her earlobe. Then he throws another, and while it’s in the air, he asks a question. “What are you reading?”

“A magazine.” Peko tells him. 

“I think Ruruka reads that one sometimes.” Sonosuke throws his last knife, gets close to her arm, and then goes over to retrieve them. Peko, like always, helps. “Is that the issue about color palettes?”

“Mhmm.” She confirms, pulling out the one that’s stuck in her braid as carefully as possible. “It keeps giving me strange results, though. It says I should avoid anything too bright, but also that pastels will wash me out, but also that anything too dark will wash me out, too.”

“That seems stupid.” He says it point-blank, no hesitation. “That’s no colors at all.”

“But it’s right.” She tells him, and he shakes his head as he gets the last of his knives. 

Things are quiet again and Peko is back to looking for the magic result that will give her the best color and Sonosuke is back to throwing knives. Two are back in the board when he asks her another question. 

“What’s your favorite color?” 

“Pink.” Peko admits, and she knows that it’s a dumb color, something soft and unsuited for both a tool and a teenage girl, but pink has always been her favorite color, ever since she was small. She said the same thing on her first day of kindergarten, if she remembers right. 

“Then just wear pink.” Sonosuke says it like it’s just that simple, and maybe it is. Maybe it’s just as simple as wear colors that you like. Maybe she’s just been overthinking it. 

“That’s the issue said that Ruruka shouldn’t wear pink because of her hair being red.” He adds. “I think she burnt it.”

“That...That sounds like Ruruka.” Peko agrees, and when she holds up the magazine, Sonosuke uses his knives wisely. He gets one in each corner and then one straight in the middle, and they leave it there for a good, long time. Peko thinks he sends a picture of it to Ruruka, and she wonders if Ruruka laughs. 

***

So she has a color, but now there’s what to do with that color. Peko knows right away that she wants to wear a skirt or a dress, just because they’re more comfortable than any sort of jeans. It’s a bit chilly, so she’ll probably put one of her standard pair of tights under whichever one she decides on. But what kind of skirt? What sort of shirt should she get if she decides on that? Picking out both a skirt and a blouse seems too complicated to start with, and that’s not even including things like accessories and makeup, so it doesn’t take long to settle on a dress. 

Deciding where to go shopping doesn’t take too long, either. There are only so many shops near Hope’s Peak, after all, so after class ends on Friday, she takes some of her money and walks to the nearest one. 

The shop is small and not too busy, but not so empty that Peko stands out as a customer. She can just blend and look as she pleases, which she thinks is good. Sales people and their cheery smiles always put her ill at ease. 

There are, as it turns out, a lot of pink dresses. A lot of them. It becomes easy to start eliminating them, though. Some of them don’t come in her size, some of them are too short for her to really be comfortable in them, and some of them are too busy, too many patterns, too much going on at once. Peko can narrow it down pretty quickly now that she can actually see the dresses, can feel them beneath her fingers, and it’s not too long before she spots one she wants to take to the dressing room. 

Objectively, it’s everything she wanted. It’s pink, and it’s a dress, and it’s in her size. The skirt of it is longer than most of the girls she knows wear their skirts, but Peko likes it. The fabric is soft and flowy, some sort of chiffon, maybe, and there’s a ribbon in the middle that separates the flowiness of the skirt from the bodice of it with a cute bow in the back. Enough detail to be interesting, but not so much that it overwhelms her. 

And so Peko tries it on. 

Sometimes, when Natsumi was bored during breaks, she watched American TV shows about brides trying to find the perfect dress just to laugh at their family drama, and sometimes Peko ended up watching with her. The brides always talked about finding _the_ dress, the dress that they put on and everything feels right and makes sense and they can see themselves walking down the aisle in, and Peko could always tell when they found it because their eyes would get all dramatic-bright, maybe overblown for the camera, and they would say “This is the one!” 

Peko feels just a bit of that as she looks in the mirror. Not as big as the women on the TV feel it, but enough of it. She doesn’t look like who she actually is because Peko only has a faint idea of who she actually is, has only met that girl once or twice on the street and had one fleeting conversation with her, maybe half of one, but Peko looks like who she wants to be, and she thinks that’s good enough. She spins once just to see how the skirt moves, but she misses half of it looking in the mirror. So she spins again, and then a third time because she can’t recall the last time she spun for any real reason. It’s strangely fun to do, and so she spins and spins and spins until she feels dizzy and a noise rises out of her that sounds like a hiccup, but Peko recognizes it for what it is: a giggle. 

Peko gets the dress and all but runs to the shoe store across the street. Ballet flats would be nice for this dress, she thinks. Heels are annoying and get in her way more than anything, and it’s too cold for sandals, and so it’s not like she has many other options. She doesn’t spend much time fussing over the particular design of them, just finds a pair and goes onto makeup because that is infinitely more complicated. 

The thing about makeup is that Peko actually knows how it works. She used to sit on the bathroom floor and watch as the mistress put herself together. Primer, foundation, powder, highlight, blush, contour, mascara, eyeliner, eyeshadow, eyebrow pencil, lip liner, lipstick, setting spray. Peko could recite her routine, could name her products, but Peko doesn’t want that process. She wants her own. 

Primer, she decides, she can cut out. Highlight and contour she can get later if she wants them, but for now, it seems like a bit much. Eyeliner always intimidated her, too close to getting stabbed in the eye, and she doubts that she’s going to find a silver eyebrow pencil, so Peko tosses those, too. And lip liner...Well, Peko doesn’t know. She thinks her lips look fine, so she throws that out, too, leaves herself with something a good bit more simple and starts looking for products. 

She avoids the familiar brands. She should go to them, logically she knows this, because Peko knows that they work, but no. It’s childish, but Peko doesn’t want to wear what the mistress wears. She wants to try something new, she wants to experiment in a way she’s never been able to before, she wants to do so many things all of the sudden that she doesn’t even know where to start because it’s so new to her, this all-consuming feeling of wanting something. 

She touches everything. It’s almost like she can’t help it. Peko runs her fingers over the smooth lids of foundation bottles, black and burgundy and bright blue. It takes looking through all of them to find her shade, testing each one against the skin of the inside of her wrist. The one comes in a clear bottle with a black lid that shimmers like obsidian and it’s cold against her hands, utterly freezing. It’s almost painful to touch it. It’s more painful to let go. 

Blush comes in a sparkly container that she buys because it comes with a seal from Sonia’s country and she trusts them to make good makeup, and powder is from the same spot. Mascara is strange because she doesn’t know if she should get volumizing or lengthening, but she settles on volume because Peko is somewhat afraid that if her lashes are too long, they’ll hit against her glasses and leave dark streaks on the lens. She doesn’t know if that’s how it works, but she also can’t think of anyone she wants to ask that question, and so she simply avoids it. 

The lipstick is, in a word, terrifying. It’s perhaps the most terrifying part of the whole operation, because there’s just so much of it and there are so many colors and would it be cliche to match her dress? If so, then what does she get? All of spans before her like miles and miles and grass and she feels like a mouse in a field must feel, but she’s good at swallowing fear. She learned it when she was too young to even know that it was what she was doing. So she dives in, thinks about being a bird of prey instead, and searches. 

It takes an hour. A literal hour. Decisions come slow to Peko. They come faster than they used to, but they still come so slow.. She leaves with something that’s peachy without being too orange or too pink, and she obviously can’t put it on in the middle of the store, but she looks at the tube and knows. It just takes a long time to get to the knowing. 

By the time Peko gets back to the school, she’s blown more money than she thought she would spend in her whole life, but she doesn’t feel guilty about it. She doesn’t feel anything about it, actually. The only thing she feels is something electric that she decides to call excitement as she eats a late dinner and thinks about tomorrow. 

***

The Saturday morning jog is fast, too fast, because Peko can’t conceive slowing down. Hajime has to skip steps to keep up and Peko should maybe be more considerate, but there’s too much energy in her to think about doing that. She’s too excited. 

Like always, they stop at the cafeteria, but Peko doesn’t get in line. “I have to get dressed.” She says, and then adds on “And put on makeup. That takes a while, but I’ll be back.”

“Alright.” Hajime doesn’t seem too bothered by the change in routine, but he does seem a bit confused by it. “You were worried about finding something for today earlier, right? Did you find something you liked?”

“Mhmm.” And then Peko smiles, because yes, she very much did and she feels like at least one other person somewhere will like it, too. She’s been working on her smiles, Hajime being her main assistance there, and when he sees one show up naturally, he gives her one in return. 

“I’ll grab you an apple.” He promises before getting into line, and Peko gives him a nod before heading back to her dorm. 

First, there’s hair, and her usual braids are more than alright there. Then there’s the makeup, and everything goes smoothly until she gets to the mascara and she ends up with a clump in her lashes. 

A clump. How does one fix a clump? Peko doesn’t know, but she knows someone who would know and who might be up. Might be. If Natsumi isn’t, she won’t be happy about being woken up, but she’s the best resource Peko has when it comes to makeup and so she tries. 

**[Peko]** Do you know how to get clumps out of mascara?

 **[Natsumi]** yeah duh, of course i do. 

**[Natsumi]** i’m me. 

**[Natsumi]** i know everything. 

**[Natsumi]** why, you got a clump in your non-existent mascara or smth? lmao

 **[Peko]** It’s existent mascara, actually.

 **[Natsumi]** lmaooooooo, really?

 **[Peko]** Yes.

 **[Natsumi]** OH SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 **[Natsumi]** i’ll be over in one second.

 **[Natsumi]** AND DO *NOT* MOVE

 **[Natsumi]** NOT EVEN AN INCH

 **[Natsumi]** I MEAN IT HO. YOU MOVE, YOU DIE. 

Peko decides to follow that advice and sits still for a moment, just looking at herself in the mirror. She supposes that she looks nice, if not for that one awkward clump on her lashes, and she feels rather nice, too. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots what is definitely Natsumi on top of what is definitely a golf cart, dressed in shorts that are far too short for the weather and a shirt that she recognises as being the shirt that says _Love is temporary, but knives are forever_ with doodles of butterfly knives on it. Peko recognizes that as not her style, but she can appreciate it as definitely being Natsumi’s and looking good on her. 

Not too long after that, there’s the sound of her door opening and Peko sees Natsumi in the mirror’s reflection. Her makeup is perfect, or at least it looks perfect to Peko’s mostly-untrained eye. 

“Hey!” She greets, taking her bookbag off her shoulder and pulling a makeup bag out of it. “Spin so that you’re facing me.”

Peko spins as Natsumi pulls something from her bag that looks like the same brush Peko used to apply her mascara with, only there’s nothing on it. She holds it up to Peko’s face, and seeing the instrument in someone else’s hand it a bit terrifying, but she trusts Natsumi not to stab her in the eye on purpose. At least, not right now. 

“Okay, now blink.” Natsumi demands, and while Peko blinks, she wonders how much of Natsumi’s demanding, almost suffocating personality is a result of the same situation that gave Peko what it gave her. When she blinks, she notices that Natsumi’s makeup isn’t perfect like she originally thought, either. The edge of her eyeliner is smudged. “Eyelash brush. Invest in one. Now, I hope you have some sort of something for your lips, because I straight up can’t tell them from the rest of your face.” 

“I do.” Peko grabs the tube of lipstick from where it’s sitting on the sink and Natsumi looks at the color of it and nods approvingly. 

“Nice shade. Whatcha wearin’? I didn’t think you owned anything but training stuff and the Hope’s Peak uniform.” She asks, and her tone is more curious than straight up investigative, and Peko wonders if she’s trying to change, too, but she doesn’t know how to ask that yet. 

“I didn’t.” Peko applies her lipstick carefully, spinning back so that she’s watching herself in the mirror. “It’s on the bed.”

And so Natsumi darts out of the bathroom to look, and while Peko finishes up, she hears an exclamation of “CUTE!”. Natsumi cuts it up into two syllables, kah- _yoot_!, and when Peko goes out to see what she’s doing and actually put on the dress, Natsumi’s holding it up. 

“This is adorable as hell.” Natsumi says, practically throwing it at her. “You have to put it on! I’ll be right outside because holy shit, I have to see this.”

Peko nods and she leaves, taking out her phone and texting something to somebody. Peko doesn’t know what or who, and she doesn’t think about it for too long as she gets dressed. 

When she exits, holding Natsumi’s bookbag from where she dropped it along with her own things, Natsumi smiles at her. “You’re kilin’ it, Peko-chan! Now come on, where are you headed?”

“Thank you.” Peko says, because she’s fairly certain that was a compliment. “And breakfast.”

“Same here, girl. Let’s get going.” Natsumi starts walking and Peko changes things up, walking with her instead of half a step behind. She doesn’t seem to notice, and if she does notice, Natsumi doesn’t seem to mind. 

Peko’s usual table is a little more crowded than she’s used to, and a good look reveals that it’s because somebody broke out a deck of cards. Hajime and Chiaki are there, like always, but there’s also Nagito and Fuyuhiko and Akane. 

“Oh, hey Pekoyama.” Hajime greets, handing her an apple from his tray. “You look really nice today.”

The compliment is casual, but it makes Peko happy anyways. Hajime doesn’t say stuff like that unless he means it, most of the time, and it’s nice to hear someone confirm what Peko had hoped. 

“I think so, too.” Chiaki tells her, rubbing her eyes and squinting at the dress. “Yeah, I definitely think so.”

“Thank you.” She says, and there’s some shuffling around, trying to figure out how she and Natsumi’ll fit. Peko ends up between Akane and Nagito, and Natsumi ends up next to her brother, both of them now directly across from Peko. Behind them, Sonosuke and Ruruka go to their usual table, and Peko waves. They both wave back. 

“Just nice? Hinata, you can do better than that.” Natsumi scolds. “She looks amazing! Divine! Superb!”

“Incredible! Lovely!” Nagito suggests, nearly smacking Peko in the face with how enthusiastically he moves his hands before putting some cards in the middle. “Also, three sevens.”

“Bullshit!” Akane yells. “Not on Peko lookin’ like a snack, cause she does, but on the sevens.”

Nagito turns over the cards, revealing three sevens, and Akane grumbles as she takes the pile of cards in the middle. Peko takes a bite of her apple and looks at Fuyuhiko, who has thus far been silent. He’s looking at his cards with an unusual intensity, but then he suddenly looks up and his face is bright red. 

“Pekoyama is more than a snack.” He says, making a point of not looking at Peko. 

“Yeah, duh! She’s Peko, she’s like, a million things. I’m just sayin’ that good-lookin’ is one of them! She looks cute.” Akane defends herself while Peko takes another bite of her apple, and Fuyuhiko mumbles something that no one quite catches.

“What’d ya say?” Natsumi asks, smirking like a cat who caught the canary between its teeth. 

“I said she looks like herself.” Fuyuhiko says it clearly, and now he’s looking right at her and Peko feels her heart rise up in her chest. 

“Cryptic.” Chiaki comments. “Oh, and one eight.”

“Two nines.” 

“One ten.”

“Thank you.” Peko tells him quietly, her words and her smile almost lost in the noise of the cards. But he hears her, and he nods, and he puts down one jack, and the game goes on.


End file.
